


Five touches

by kikibug13



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Backstory, Character Death, Developing Relationship, F/M, Love, M/M, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-12
Updated: 2010-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-10 12:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Rolande touched Delauney's face, in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five touches

_He is the wiser half of my sundered soul..._

We were D'Angeline in Tiberium.

But those who attended us, more for me than for him, and the embassy, and a few traders, there weren't many like us; once we met and began talking with each other, there might as well have been no others.

It was a short order until we did everything together - studied, went to the same masters' lectures, joked together, studied, bathed, exercised, entertained or were entertained, together. Sometimes there were others and sometimes there weren't - it mattered not. We only separated to sleep, and not much of it; it was unwritten rule, that students never slept enough. For more time together, we did not even mind.

He called me "my prince"; I tired soon of Montrève and took up calling him by his mother's name. Delauney. After shepherd that Elua himself had loved, the story went; if he was like that ancestor of his, I could see why. It wasn't the handsome face, so much more striking in the middle of everybody from everywhere as Tiberum was; nor the piercing gray eyes, nor the startling hair like barely dulled flame. It was the mind, sharp, unstoppable, thirsting for knowledge and yet never greedy or hoarding it; always generous, always curious, always bright. Together, oh, together. There was no problem we couldn't solve, no riddle nor obstacle too overwhelming.

So we were inseparable.

And so it was that day that we were alone together, ridden to a copse outside the city to enjoy the sunshine after days of rain, going at each other with mock spears or mock swords, trying playful strategies against each other from our books or lectures, challenging and meeting one another's challenge, until competing took over the play and after I disarmed him, we were wrestling till he was underneath me, pinned by my body and my hands holding his arms high above his head, by the wrists.

It was then we both stopped, I to try to hold him, and he to fight me back; my hair not long enough to shade both our faces but falling around mine, released from its loose binding; his disheveled, bright against the green that covered that clearing. But it was his eyes I saw, his eyes looking up into mine, open, unfrightened, speaking words in the tongue of home, the tongue of Elua which I did not want to turn a deaf ear to.

So I crossed the distance between our faces and kissed him; with no hesitation, he kissed me back, warm and ardent, surrendering all.

I only lifted up my head to look at him again, later; released one wrist of his to cup his cheek inside my palm.

It was not what I had expected, of myself, but it felt too right to fight it. And yet, I had to ask. "Do you want _this_, Anafiel?"

And his response was quick, unhesitant and breathless and complete. "Yes."

***

He had looked forward to more tidings from home, my Delauney; and I with him.

Little did we know what the letter from his father would bring, how it would cut the joy of both us with a cruel blade.

Disowned. Disinherited. Sundered from his family he loved.

Because of what? Because he loved me, and would have his life tied up to mine than look for somebody who could give him heirs, no, not him - his father.

I would be angry in my helplessness had he not been in pain. He'd loosed his hair, buried his face in his hands, and tried not to weep for no more being what he had always been.

I spoke to him, against the curtain of red, lifting it somewhat to see his face. If he could not be Montrève, he would always be Delauney, and always the person of keen mind and rich heart whom his father could not have known, to cast away so. I do not know if my words helped - in so much tension from the pain, did minute changes show?

But with time, he came to me, and leaned his head against my chest, and then I held him. Smoothing, when I dared, the edges of his hair against my shirt or his, caressing, trying to comfort a pain I could not take away - but mostly, I just held him.

And later, I had to ask, since he would not. "Are you sure? You do not have to be ... Antinous. They are your family--"

"I'm sure." There was no hesitation in his voice, just tremor of the loss. "It hurts, without them. But I cannot _be_ myself without you, any more." He moved, and for an instant I believed he might away to grieve on his own, yet he but rose to look into my eyes, his own dark as I was not used to seeing them. "Rolande, I love you."

Love as thou wilt, our nature said.

"And I love you, Anafiel."

My fingers brushed back a strand of the red hair, away from slipping to covering his gaze, caressed down the side of his face and rested there. "You will not do without..."

"Shh." His hand rose to brush across my lips. "I want nothing from you but what you have given me already."

That was who Delauney was. It was my voice who quivered next. "That, this, you will always have."

"Then," answered he and I believed him, "I will be always happy."

***

It hurt, that we had quarreled. It hurt that he would accuse my wife to be, it hurt that he had done so with the words, the poetry I so admired and I always would.

It even hurt that no more of his work could be written and what he had could not be read, but that had been as much as I could wrest of my father, of those he had attacked, for him.

Yet there was too much to do, or I found more; I had committed to what I thought right, and he had chosen otherwise.

Or so I thought, until the day he found me in the shadow of the great oak.

My father had bethought to entertain outside; a picnic, he would call it; it was circus, and yet so beautiful and pleasing to the eye and ear as Angelines could do, could make it for their king. Too beautiful. The idleness of it chafed, and I walked away, alone. Not too far, of course, yet far enough.

When he came, his face was wet and twisted with weeping; drawn, as though neither food nor sleep were right (oh how I knew that), the gray eyes dimmed.

"Rolande..." He said, and then his voice choked.

And in that instant, I knew that I could bear not the pain. I reached and placed my palm along the side of his face, brushing the tears away, hot tears that kept coming.

He begged, then. Begged for pardon with words that had all the fire and strength I knew of him, I loved in him. He begged, and knew not he was already forgiven. That I could not bear to keep us apart, not now, not any more. Not when I saw him thus, that not even his sense of right was stronger than what bound us.

His words let loose the pain in _me_, which I had tried to bind behind the duties of a prince and husband. I felt it then blossoming inside me, and it choked me, too strong, and so I could not interrupt, I could not answer, not then. Not until Delauney talked himself out, the flood of words thinning to a trickle and then drying, or drowning in another flood of tears.

I did not find an answer in words, myself.

I but reached and held him to me, crushing his chest into mine. And then I felt, for the first time since his words dissented from what I thought, like I was whole.

All was forgiven, yet nothing was the same.

***

Readying for a battle.

We had done so before, together and apart. We had fought, with determination or with morbid laughter, shoulder to shoulder or across spaces.

But no battle was like this, for no threat like this had come to Elua's land since long before I was born.

It was more than just me, the crown prince, who would lead our forces; we had discussed the strategy and tactic until late, and then it was relayed to all who had to follow it in the night, too fresh to be betrayed, even if any D'Angeline would stoop to do that, betray his or her land to the Skaldi. No, we would fight today and win, and our homes would be safe for it.

He held my horse while I mounted, then busied his hands and his eyes adjusting something on my strappings, his fingers certain and his manner serious. I let him do that, for a moment; then reached down and he looked at me.

My fingers ran along the side of his face, and then I cupped it lightly, a manner so familiar to both of us that I could read it in his eyes; I was excited, eager, certain; he was anxious.

"Be careful, my prince," he warned then, his face nestled against my hand. To some around us, who he was for me was known; the rest did not need the distraction of wondering, should he say somewhat closer. His voice alone was a caress for me, I did not ask for more.

I smiled, I could not but say to him, "to victory, my friend!"

He did not sigh, my Delauney, although I could see he almost wanted to. "To victory," he answered.

There was somewhat in his voice I near wanted to stay and question, a catch; or maybe he was saying, too, words that his tongue was not pronouncing. I knew them, and would have said them back--

But then we had to go.

He only moved when I released his face, leaping lightly upon his horse and spurring it after me; his mind, and heart, and soul, and sword, all at the ready for me.

***

I think of all of those, and more, to keep the pain at bay. It is too much to keep away, but I am trying.

Too weak from it and loss of blood to move, another casualty on the field, the sounds of battle still thundering about me. The clank of weapons, swords or spears against shields and armor, cries - battle cries and ones of pain, thuds of bodies against each other or falling to the ground, groans of the wounded.

For a while, they were right close to me. Now they are further, or perhaps my hearing is failing.

I cannot blink my eyes open to find out; I can barely breathe, shallow and insufficient. My head, even if I am fallen on the ground, is light, from hurt and lack of air and lack of blood, I think. It is all too much, the gash on my chest, on my arm, the stab on my thigh. They all used to be spots of burning, but now that is too bright. Or maybe I am all burning, that can also be true; only my toes and fingers are growing numb.

It sears. Every muted sound, each shallow breath, an agony. And yet I cannot give it up; for my home land, for my love, for my daughter, I need to live. Of a surety, someone will come and tend to me. The sounds are gone, maybe the fight is over. Any moment. One more breath, there should be steps approaching. Ah, I can hear nothing.

Another breath. So cold.

No, not all so cold. A warmth against my palm, or maybe I imagine it? For it feels like the warm curve of Anafiel's cheek, my Delauney. I should not have rushed ahead when he was engaged, but there were too many, I had to win against them!

But I fell.

If this is his cheek, inside my palm, is he here? Are they tending me, and I too numb to feel or hear it?

I try to open my lids, and they do not obey; I try to curl my fingers, let him know I'm here. Just a fraction of an inch; he'd know!

I try--

 

Nothing.


End file.
